Of course, as before, we can’t promise that hiring or imitating these companies will accomplish anything in particular.  It’s possible that some of them are small to the point that they won’t choose to accept new clients, too.

Still, to start at the top of the list: WebiMax, which was in first place in July, won again in the September rankings with an overall score of 100 percent.  Then OuterBox Solutions came in second with a score of 96 percent, and we’ll note that its pricing qualified as “low.”

Next, third place went to Search-Placement, and WebRankingSEO.com, which keeps its client list confidential, came in fourth.

As for the other rankings, ATAK Interactive secured fifth place, and Groove Commerce got the sixth spot on the top ten list.

Seventh place then went to Kreidman, LotusJump SEO came in eighth, Rogue Media got ninth, and Blue Acorn rounded out the group.

Good luck with your pursuit of search engine optimization.

The firms reached this conclusion after SmartRevenue, an independent organization, surveyed around 3,600 individuals, which makes their data hard to ignore.  The individuals were all U.S. residents at least 18 years old.

So on to the statistics.  Demandware stated in a press release, “More than 60 percent believe that being able to use their mobile phone while shopping to verify product availability at a particular store location is important to very important.”

Furthermore, “Approximately 20 percent of consumers currently use their phones to create shopping lists or baskets, and slightly more than that number would be interested in a mobile app to help with shopping list or basket management for their favorite retailers.”

Then one other interesting fact is that around 25 percent of consumers would like to receive coupons while shopping.

So companies should definitely try to accommodate shoppers who are on the move.  Even if many of the shoppers would be willing to delay purchases until they’re near a desktop PC, a few impulse buys are no doubt at risk, and organizations risk appearing less than up-to-date by not having a mobile strategy.

Note that these rankings can change on a monthly basis, meaning they’re not exactly set in stone.  Also, topseos.com, not some more authoritative entity in the field like Google, established the order.

Still, for what it’s worth, WebiMax, which is supposed to have a client retention rate of 98 percent, came in first place.  Then Element SEO came in second, and ATAK Interactive secured third.

Next, Search-Placement was fourth, and LotusJump SEO (which might deserve extra points for incorporating the name of a fantastic car company) was fifth.  Marketplace Earth was sixth, and Kreidman was seventh.

Finally, WebRankingSEO.com was eighth, AmeriCommerce was ninth, and Volusion finished in tenth place.

Companies that deal in ecommerce might do well to hire these organizations, or at least imitate their practices.  It seems rare for people to click through more than the first few search results for any given query, making search engine optimization very important.

Look at it this way: companies that are entirely offline won’t be clued into the existence of these features, meaning they won’t be able to take advantage of them.  And the same goes for firms that haven’t learned how to take advantage of the sorts of social media opportunities created by Facebook.

Meanwhile, ecommerce sites can perhaps become more successful than ever by simply trying to reach folks who might otherwise shop at those places.  It’s unlikely that Facebook will bar organizations without brick-and-mortar stores from using its site, after all.

So imagine that someone is wandering towards a Footlocker store, checks his iPhone, and sees a discount code for The(Imaginary)ShoeShack.com on Facebook.  That ad could quite possibly result in an ecommerce sale that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred.

Keep a close eye on how Facebook handles this geolocation issue, then.  Exactly what sort of features it’ll introduce – and when it’ll do so – remains unknown for now.

Does this signal that mobile shopping will be the end-all, be-all component of ecommerce?  Well, of course not – eight percent isn’t a majority.  And obviously, if eight percent is the predicted figure for 2015, mobile shopping isn’t a really huge deal now.

Still, senior ABI Research analyst Mark Beccue argued in a statement, “Mobile online shopping is reaching critical mass.  In the United States, mobile online shopping rose from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009.  While definitions of ‘mass market adoption’ vary, a more than threefold increase in one year indicates significant consumer interest.”

The statement also added, “Noteworthy is that even that $1+ billion turnover in the US is dwarfed by the size of the mobile online shopping market in Japan, which exceeded $10 billion in 2009 alone.”  So further growth isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

This market segment is definitely something to which ecommerce experts should pay attention, then.

Indeed, all of these updates should prove useful to developers, who are the folks who make the online world go ’round (or parts of it, at least).  Their apps have helped ensure the popularity of Facebook and the iPhone, and can make or break other different sites and services.  Thanks to this stuff, individual developers are more likely to “make” PayPal.

Then there are the corporate endorsements to consider.  At a conference yesterday, AERS, Carlson, FIS, FundRazr, MedPayOnline, Payvment, Playspan, ShopSavvy, Storenvy, Super Rewards, Sun Microsystems, S1 and Zuora all announced solutions built with the PayPal X platform.

That’s quite a collection of companies, and it’s even more impressive since they all took action at once, rather than over a period of time.

So again, it may be smart for ecommerce sites of every type and size to provide a PayPal option to their users.  Those that don’t are liable to wind up looking a little behind the times and odd.

Armando Roggio reports, “Practical eCommerce asked a group of its readers how their 2009 sales had fared . . . .  By April 7, 2009, 34.6 percent of those responding had seen a 10 percent or greater increase in sales for the first three months of 2009 compared to the same 2008 quarter.  Some individuals indicated sales growth of 30 percent or more.  Unfortunately, another 28.8 percent of respondents said that their sales had fallen 10 percent or more in the first three month of 2009 compared to the same 2008 period.”

So a full 63.4 percent of Practice eCommerce’s respondents have seen a wild swing in one direction or the other.  Trends of that sort are liable to wind up benefiting the companies behind blood pressure medication.

Perhaps the only piece of advice that be issued as a result is the obvious one: try to be on the above-10-percent end of things.  Don’t cut your advertising budget unless absolutely necessary – people can’t buy things from you if they don’t know you exist – and embrace all of the free, Web 2.0 marketing you can get your hands on (think Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

Hopefully the economy will stabilize in 2010 and we’ll see some ecommerce sales increases of the more predictable, reliable variety.

Mint is a personal finance site that helps 900,000 people keep track of their money.  Its user base is a little younger, more masculine, and less wealthy than the typical American, but falls roughly in line with norm.  Also, the fact that Mint’s users are all people who are fond of an online finance site makes its info pretty appropriate for the eCommerce crowd.

So on to the statistics.  In an article for TechCrunch, Mint’s CEO and founder, Aaron Patzer, wrote, “Looking by category from January to November, we see greater than 20% declines in entertainment (-22%), Home – including furnishings, services, and home improvement (-21%), gas/fuel (-32%), and travel (-24%).  Spending also declined in food, shopping, and bills/utilities, with the only increase being spending on financial advisors as people look for help during uncertain times.”

Then, “From August to December, the average savings account was halved to $5,500.  Fortunately, credit card debt remained roughly constant, but investments declined by 24%, while loans (mortgage, HELOC, student loans, and personal loans) increased by 11%.”

That’s what’s happened to the people your company is probably targeting, then.  Understanding their situation will hopefully lead to increased sales.

Other businesses should be able to learn something from the retailers’ success, although, to be fair, there are definitely some seasonal patterns at work. L.L. Bean.com placed first, for example (with a conversion rate of 23.6 percent), and its cold-weather clothing surely drove a large part of its success.

Another clothing provider, J. Jill, nabbed the second spot, and then Proflowers came in third. People preparing for the spring planting season no doubt contributed to its 17.8 percent conversion rate. And let’s not forget the flowers-and-jewelry-and-cards holiday that occurs in February.

In a possible move away from seasonal trends, Drugstore.com somehow wound up in fifth place. Our best guess here is that a lot of people got both the winter sniffles and the desire to medicate them; this may be unavoidable. But Drugstore.com also ran some promotions and highlighted some partnerships that might have helped.

Finally – we’ll skip a few spots – in seventh, ninth, and tenth places, CDW, Bose, and eBay showed up as people put their Christmas money to use. Bose, especially, has built up a great reputation through advertising.

We’ll now direct a hat tip to MarketingCharts for providing the Nielsen data. Businesses might want to take a close look at it and judge what they can do in response.

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